Stephanie Eckroat

Locally grown food showcased at farmers markets often appear simple from the outside, fresh produce laid out on tables, coolers filled with meat and friendly vendors greeting customers, but behind that inviting scene lies a complicated and often exhausting system farmers and ranchers must navigate just to bring food to market. Across the United States, growers face a shared set of challenges that make running a local food business far more difficult than most people realize.

Kansas farmers know how to work through the heat, and they proved it on July 27 when 220 members and guests showed up without hesitation for the Sedgwick County Farm Bureau Annual Meeting. As part of the statewide Farm Bureau network, Sedgwick County Farm Bureau works to support farmers through advocacy, education, leadership development and community engagement. The organization serves as a voice for agriculture, ensuring farmers of every size have representation and resources to strengthen their operations and their communities.

A food stand on the corner of Hillside and 103rd in Sedgwick County may be small, but it is mighty in all the ways that matter. At SKF Family Farms, Steven and Kelly Foster have carved out a thriving family operation in this little patch in Mulvane, sandwiched between Haysville and Derby, where sandy soil and steady determination have turned a once‑overgrown field into a place overflowing with life.

Many customers walk up and ask, “So is it buffalo or bison?” Around here, both words have been used for generations, and most folks still say “buffalo” without thinking twice. When I sat down with Luke Yearout and Brooke Williams, I mentioned the children’s book “Buffalo Fluffalo,” and they both immediately laughed — they knew exactly what I meant. 

When I first came to Kansas, I didn’t expect agriculture to shape so much of what I’d come to understand about this beautiful state. But it’s impossible to live here without noticing how deeply food, farming and community are integrated together. Whether you’re driving past wheat fields that stretch forever or stopping at a roadside stand for fresh vegetables or eggs, you feel it. Kansas grows food with purpose. And the longer I’m here, the clearer it becomes that local and conventional agriculture aren’t competing stories.

What began as a garage hobby for owner Eric Myers has evolved into a multi-layered business serving customers across the United States and Canada. Today, the operation is tucked behind a modest yellow home along Meridian in Haysville, easy to miss from the street, but anything but small behind the scenes. The backyard has been transformed into a compact, high-efficiency mushroom farm supported by custom-built equipment, much of it designed and fabricated by Myers himself.

On any given spring day in central Kansas, you might find a small bus tucked into a parking lot, its shelves lined with pretty greens and curious customers stepping on board. It’s not public transit; it’s a traveling plant shop, and at the wheel is Renata Goossen, the Plant Bus Lady.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting McGinn’s Grapes and Grains, owned by Mark and Carolyn McGinn, and it turned out to be far more than just a stop. It was an experience rooted in history, innovation and genuine passion for agriculture.

On a beautiful sunny day, I hopped on a golf cart with Carolyn for a tour of the farm. As we made our way across the land, it quickly became clear this is not just any farm; it’s a place where generations of hard work meet forward-thinking ideas.

Returning to the family dairy farm near Valley Center has always been the goal for Sedgwick County native Maggie Gilles. For five years, Maggie and her husband Donny built their careers in Wisconsin. Donny worked as an engineer and Maggie served as an associate editor for Hoard’s Dairyman, a magazine she fondly describes as the “home and garden publication for dairymen.”

But Kansas was always home.

Donny, who grew up on a small dairy farm in Minnesota, understood that from the beginning.